Another thing that makes this interesting, which fully supports the term "on any given Sunday"... is the Giants are 11 - 7 while the Pats are 15 - 3 going into the SB. Imagine that, an 11 - 7 team in the SB while the 15 - 2 Packers are at home!!!!Posted by agcsbill

Yup, and they were a 6-loss team when they met an 18-0 team in the SB in '08. Having just beaten the 1 and 2 seeds back-to-back on their home fields, they have to be loaded with confidence. Maybe overconfidence.

Anyway, SB should be a great game. I sure hope Gronk is fully healthy for it.

Come on Pats you can do this. The younger guys are so excited to be going but I hope they settle down and focus. We need this SB win. Need all to be sharp and score early. Need to play like we did against Denver and of course we will be the underdogs but so what. We can win this. Go Pats

The Giants are a worthy foe and a serious team. Keep in mind however they have strung together a ton of must-win games. They can also have an off game occasionally. It's gonna be one heck of a game. This is Brady and BB's legacy game...we'll find out. Gronk's health could be a big key.

This year the Pats offense is much different than 2007. Also, SMith and the 49'ers just couldn't get anything donw against the Giants. Smith has open receivers at which he threw at their feet and couldn't hit the side of a barn tonight. Gonna be a long two weeks and we will constantly hear about how good the Giants D is and how bad the Pats D is!!!Posted by agcsbill

Yup Bill, thats exactly what I was thinking. Going to be a really long two weeks hearing about the Giants.

I think we matched up better with the Niners....Eli, as much as I despise the guy, is much better than Alex Smith, Joe Flacco, and Tebow. The Giants WR's are overall, better than those other teams as well.

Brady has got to play a heckuva lot better against the Giants than he did today. I know Rusty thinks the Pats D was spectacular in earlier in the year against the Giants, but either way, we lost. BB has got to have a good game plan, our D line has got to get pressure on Eli, and Brady has to play a good game.

One of the toughest things to do in the NFL is beat a team twice in one season. So that should be to our advantage. I've always said that if the Pats hadn't played the Giants in the regular season in 07, we would have won the SB. So hopefully the reverse is true this year.

As I said on another thread, Tom needs to loosen up in playoff games like he does in regular season games.

He didn't have a great 2007 superbowl, (yes, he was playing injured) but since then, he's been tight, forced, and making bad decisions.

He needs to realize that this D that has shown up the last couple of weeks is good enough to win without him having to score 36 or more points. He needs to tune out all of the naysayers and his own demons about his post season play.

Today it appeared the only receiver he really trusted was Wes and felt he had to force the ball to his other receivers. It didn't seem to me the Raven's defensive line was giving him that much pressure that he couldn't have taken that extra split second for the recievers to break. Granted, the coverage was much tighter than most games we played, but I think he hurried himself wanting to shake out his demons.

If he relaxes, if everyone stays healthy, if Vince, Spike, Anderson, Chung, & Mayo play like they did today, we win.

Let's face it, we survived Tom's turnovers, no other playoff team this season has survived their turnovers.

As I said on another thread, Tom needs to loosen up in playoff games like he does in regular season games. He didn't have a great 2007 superbowl, (yes, he was playing injured) but since then, he's been tight, forced, and making bad decisions. He needs to realize that this D that has shown up the last couple of weeks is good enough to win without him having to score 36 or more points. He needs to tune out all of the naysayers and his own demons about his post season play. Today it appeared the only receiver he really trusted was Wes and felt he had to force the ball to his other receivers. It didn't seem to me the Raven's defensive line was giving him that much pressure that he couldn't have taken that extra split second for the recievers to break. Granted, the coverage was much tighter than most games we played, but I think he hurried himself wanting to shake out his demons. If he relaxes, if everyone stays healthy, if Vince, Spike, Anderson, Chung, & Mayo play like they did today, we win. Let's face it, we survived Tom's turnovers, no other playoff team this season has survived their turnovers. Posted by BrocktonMike

You know Gronk had almost 100 yards before he got injured. Seemed like Brady had plenty of confidence to me. Brady wasn't good, but we got to remember that the Ravens are a first class defense. They are the real deal. Ravens do a really good job of mixing up coverages and giving a false read on the blitz. That also contributed to Brady's poor performance. Got to give the Ravens their due and admit they caused Brady some fits. So I don't think it was as simple as Brady just not playing well. Going against a great defense will do that.

The Giants won at Foxborough earlier this year w/out Nicks or Bradshaw. The Giants have a better passing game than the Ravens. The Giants rush the passer better than the Ravesn. Eli is far better than Flacco.